39 Movies Students Must Watch According to Their Degree

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Summertime is here! And with the heat and the holidays finally comes the time to catch up on the Hollywood classics or recent blockbuster movies — and thankfully, there are hundreds of years worth of amazing movies that students must watch according to their degree. Here are three movies you should watch if you’re a…

1. Law Student

A Time to Kill (1996)

Apart from now knowing that there was such a thing as a pre-chick flick Matthew McConaughey, you can expect a combination of courtroom with America’s racist south. It is a gripping tale of right and wrong when a man decides to take justice in his own hands. And anything with Kevin Spacey is worth watching, really.

Bonus: To Kill a Mockingbird, A Few Good Men, Philadelphia

2. Literature Student

Dead Poets Society (1989)

Who would think a man could get a bunch of high school boys to read poetry to each other? Only the iconic Robin Williams, who portrays an eccentric poetry teacher that reveals the importance of this art. Let this movie discover what you stay alive for and don’t forget to “seize the day”.

Bonus: Sense and Sensibility, Midnight in Paris, Kill Your Darlings

3. Business Student

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Making $49 million by the time you’re 26? Perfectly possible. The wolf of Wall Street is Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker involved in crime and corruption who served 22 months in prison for defrauding investors. The movie is perfect to discuss business ethics, emotional intelligence, power and leadership.

Bonus: The Godfather, The Social Network, The Big Short

4. Medicine Student

Still Alice (2015)

Alice is a renowned neurolinguistics professor at Columbia University who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Apart from depicting the early memory lapses and the later unrecognition of familiar faces, the movie goes beyond the diagnosis and the doctor’s office — it focuses on the distress this crushing disease causes among family members.

Bonus: Contagion, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Memento

5. History Student

Schindler’s List (1993)

What is one of the most referenced (Second World) war movies of all time, Schindler’s List tells the true story of a German industrialist and member of the Nazi party, Oskar Schindler, who did everything in his “power to defeat the system” and managed to save about 1,100 Jews from meeting their death after becoming deeply moved by their extreme “living” conditions. Apart from illustrating one of the worst years of modern history, the List gives us hope that good is always to be found in someone.

Bonus: Elizabeth, Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator

6. Communications Student

Spotlight (2015)

In what is probably one of the most talked about journalistic investigations in recent years, the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe newspaper uncovered the sex abuse coverup scandal that would rock the Catholic Church. It is a ruthless fight to right very big wrongs and certainly depicts what every journalist would dream of accomplishing.

Bonus: Thank You For Smoking, All The President’s Men, Citizen Kane

7. Fashion Student

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Fresh out of university, the not-so-fashionable Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) lands a job “a million girls would kill for” as an assistant to the devil herself, magazine editor Miranda Priestly (Queen Meryl Streep).What is probably the first movie that pops into your head when you think about fashion, The Devil Wears Prada turned into something of a cult. Prepare for a great soundtrack, a makeover to drool for, and a glimpse of charming Paris.

Bonus: The Great Gatsby, Coco Before Chanel, Sex and the City

8. Philosophy Student

A Clockwork Orange (1975)

When a violent delinquent has the power to make you feel sorry for him, you know something is messing with your brains. Or that you’re watching a Stanley Kubrick movie. After one of his extreme acts of violence goes awry, Alex DeLarge is imprisoned and volunteers to undergo a new treatment to “be good” and eliminate every violent impulse in his mind.

As the movie progresses, the original feelings we had for the main character curiously begin to shift and we start to wonder: does goodness come from within? Does society have the right to deny a criminal of their violent personality traits for the sake of maintaining social peace?

Bonus: Blade Runner, The Truman Show, The Matrix

9. Engineering Student

The Martian (2015)

Set in the not-too-distant future, The Martian tells the story of NASA astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) who is stranded on Mars after his crew is forced to evacuate. A mechanical engineer and a botanist himself, Mark has to figure out a way to stretch 50 days of supplies during a two-year period and a way to communicate with Earth, located 140 million miles away. Surprisingly, duct tape is usually the right answer.

Bonus: Apollo 13, Gravity, Star Trek

10. International Relations Student

The Constant Gardener (2005)

The Constant Gardener is Justin, a junior diplomat who falls in love with a beautiful and fiery political activist. After getting married, Justin is posted to Kenya and, after a short time, learns a horrible truth about his wife. Certainly not a diplomat’s regular daily life, but nevertheless this movie deals with international affairs like only John Le Carré would.

Bonus: Lawrence of Arabia, Hotel Rwanda, Argo

11. Maths Student

The Man Who Knew Infinity (2016)

In 1914, Srinivasa Ramanujan (Dev Patel), a self-taught Indian mathematician, boarded a ship and traveled to Cambridge University, where he could finally follow his passion for mathematics. In a few short years, he filled notebooks with formulas and theorems, some of which still influence the work of mathematicians and scientists today. The curious thing about him, however, was how he relied his skills on intuition and imagination rather than reason and logic, turning math into an art.

Bonus: Moneyball, The Imitation Game, A Beautiful Mind

12. Music Student

Whiplash (2014)

This intense crescendo of a movie is worth it just for its soundtrack. It revisits the clichéd plot of an arts student (Miles Teller) at a well-respected conservatory who is willing to do anything to be the very best, often alienating every other thing and person in their life. Think Black Swan, just not terrifying. The answer to the question of whether it’s worth to sacrifice personal happiness to be “the best” lingers throughout the movie, especially with a wacky music teacher (J. K. Simmons) fixated on greatness.

Bonus: Amadeus, 8 Mile, Les Misérables

13. Arts Student

Frida (2002)

Frida (Selma Hayek) is, of course, Frida Kahlo, the surrealist Mexican painter. The movie follows the public and private life of the artist, which was nothing short of distressing, and tells the story of how she became a Mexican cultural icon.

Bonus: The Da Vinci Code, Black Swan, Mr. Turner

Thanks for reading this post!

How many of these movies have you watched? Do you have any other suggestions? Let us know in the comments. And remember: if you need student accommodation with the best flatmates, you’ll find the perfect student home on Uniplaces.